


Magisch

by cat_77



Category: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, F/M, Gen, Mpreg, mention of canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 15:24:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/pseuds/cat_77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His time with Mina was magical.  As a witch hunter, this may prove problematic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magisch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [credoimprobus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/credoimprobus/gifts).



> Written for credoimprobus for the 2013 Yuletide exchange. I so seriously want to thank credoimprobus for requesting the prompt that I have always wanted to write for this fandom. Thank you for a reason and a deadline and letting me indulge. Wishing you a happy holiday season filled with badass siblings in leather.
> 
> * * *

Despite the various stories surrounding it, witch hunting was actually serious fucking business. You needed to know the hows and whys and not just what supplies you would need but where to get them. You also had to build the tools for the job and be just that damn much faster than the witches themselves to survive the night.

Hansel was proud that he had yet to be bested by a witch. Yeah, sure there were some close calls, but he was living and breathing and they were headless and dead. At the end of the day? He called that a win.

Unfortunately, some of the beasts called upon by the witches were a different matter all together. They had their own versions of natural agility and strength, and used them to their fullest abilities. It was one of these they were hunting now. Its master was dead and gone and the thing had gone rogue with no one to control it. Larger than a wagon but smaller than a standard cottage, teeth sharp as knives, skin hard as steel, and wings that gave it a truly unfair aerial advantage.

Gretel had a few ideas, most involving fire and explosions, and their now loyal troll offered his services to smash the thing to pieces. Hansel was keeping that in reserve, even though he was rather growing to like the big guy and didn’t want him to actually hurt himself out of some inbred sense of duty. For now though, they were on tracking duty, something made all the more difficult when the beast’s clawed feet didn’t always touch the ground to leave a mark.

He was dizzy enough from scanning the treetops for broken branches and the bluffs for wayward missing chunks that he looked to his timekeeper on his wrist to see if it was time for another injection. He still had hours to go though, so he sucked it up and marched on and tried not to lose the gravy-laden biscuits he had shoved into his mouth for a makeshift lunch before he had made the climb.

“Anything?” Gretel called from the clearing a few hundred feet behind and below him.

He shook his head. “Nothing,” he confirmed.

“We should split up,” she suggested, and he fought the urge to roll his eyes at her predictability. “You go East and I’ll go West, we can meet back here at sundown.”

He didn’t bother replying, but simply headed in the direction indicated. One positive thing about the whole situation was that Edward and Ben were down by her, which meant she was stuck with them both for the foreseeable future. Well, technically two positive things because it was nice to know his sister was not running off to face some big bad something-or-other all alone. Their new allies were good and protective and all that, especially of Gretel, but there were times he missed it being just the two of them, brother and sister against the more sinister parts of the world. He wasn’t going to deny the benefits of backup, but he was going to lament the loss of privacy. It was a trade off, he supposed, and not the end of everything. That said, he wasn’t going to let the opportunity for even a few hours of peace and quiet pass him by.

As luck would have it, there was a tavern buried in the hills next to a blink-and-you-miss-it village. Also as luck of a different kind would have it, his nausea from before reasserted itself and he opted for some goat’s milk and porridge instead of the ale and cheese he had been hoping for. Nobody questioned the food choices as apparently it was common to get sick this high up, but he did use the reassurances as an opening to further conversation and questioning as to whether or not they had seen Big and Scaly anytime in the recent past. 

They had, and the thing had decimated the healer's house – mother and child still inside – and then headed back for the hills once apparently plump and full. The healer herself was nowhere to be found, but they couldn’t tell if she had made a run for it or had been caught in the destruction and feeding frenzy. The townspeople directed to him to the remains of her home and he plucked through the wreckage to find absolutely nothing save for a few bones and a mighty stench. He buried what he could find, tried not to lose his recent meal from it, and then headed back to his sister, arriving just past sundown to both listen to her worries and tell her his tale.

He took his nightly injection and ate the stew-like thing Ben cooked up because he was actually decent at making it. They plotted and planned and decided to go back to the wreckage and plot and plan from there instead in the morning.

The village was willing to put them up if they could track down the beast and destroy it. Well, they village was willing to put everyone but Edward up if they could track it down and destroy it. The prospect of a real bed instead of the dirt was welcoming, and so they readily accepted. 

“Did you have to bury the bodies?” Ben asked as he scanned the area, frowning at the fresh pile of dirt.

“Actually, yes, yes I did. What with it being the respectful thing to do for a mother and child, oddly enough I felt compelled to give them a proper burial,” Hansel snapped back.

The kid frowned, but relented, “It’s just that maybe they would tell us something more about the beast.”

“It looks like a dragon and eats people,” Gretel replied drolly. “There’s not much we could learn save for if it had an overbite or not.” There was movement in the trees behind her and she readied her weapon while she amended, “Or possibly if it will be returning for dessert.”

Ben ran for cover and Edward both swatted at a wing and created a troll-barrier around Gretel. As much as Hansel knew his sister got annoyed at this behavior and its shot-limiting ways, a not-so-small part of him appreciated the concern. For himself, he ran left to draw it away from the others, hopefully to allow them a better shot, and to get himself in a better position to take his own aim.

It followed, which was nice except for the part where it was not, and it tossed chunks of trees and various shrubbery to the side in its attempt to get to him. He feigned another left and dodged right instead and wedged himself between some rocks for cover before he just started shooting at the thing, hoping something would give. The thing that gave was his gun, which was swiped from his hands without even a growl. 

Then of course, something odd had to happen.

The beast hovered, clearly having the upper hand, and simply sniffed. Its nose was dangerously close, breath rank from the rotting flesh still stuck between its teeth and possibly its own special, personal scent. He could see the sharpness, feel the heat as it exhaled, and readied the knife from his belt to give it a try. When he threw it, it sailed through empty air though, and embedded itself neatly in the tree that would have been behind his prey had his prey still be present. He paused and blinked and felt a breeze ruffle his hair as the thing passed over him, wings flapping to push it up and away. The only thing he could think of was, “Huh.”

They did not find the beast that night, nor did they find it in the weeks that followed. There were still rumors of its existence, and apparently it kept a tight circle around its previous hunting grounds, but it didn’t really venture into any town or village so much as pick up strays that wandered too far from home. It had a penchant for the young, as in actual babies, but would take the mother if hungry enough as well. With no leads though, and no actual visual confirmation, they could do nothing save for apologize and continue the hunt even as they took other jobs on the side.

They took down six witches and a warlock of all things, which Hansel was actually beginning to believe was a legend. One of the witches knocked him on his ass and glared down at him, wand at the ready, but then burst out laughing and disappeared, which did absolutely nothing for his ego. It did, however, do a lot for Gretel’s when she took the bitch down, and she used the opportunity to lecture Hansel about his eating habits possibly being at fault when it happened again two months later. He couldn’t tell if the Sugar Sickness was worsening, or if he was just damn hungry, and more than once questioned if one of the witches cursed him in a way to augment his usual troubles. He still fought, and he still shot and all that, but he felt bogged down, and not just by the way his jerkin felt too tight or by the extra rolls he hid to snack on when Gretel wasn’t looking. He figured he’d just kill the head witch that trained the witch that had likely becursed him and it should break whatever spell she cast when everything else she did unraveled.

But it wasn’t quite that simple. They found the head witch of the local troublemakers and took her down and yet Hansel still felt off.

The beast at least had howled at the witch's demise, which meant they finally had a lead on it again. They found it, only for it to pull its weird routine once more. It completely had the upper hand, Ben knocked to the side and Edward trying to climb back up the cliff he had been tossed off of, only Gretel and Hansel himself remaining. They were backed against the rocks, weapons and artillery running low, and then it just flew away.

Okay, to be fair, it sniffed them both, seemed to bow slightly, and then took off but, still, weird.

Its rancid breath had once again set off Hansel's still rampant nausea, only this time Gretel was close enough that he simply couldn't fake it. He vomited into some nearby shrubbery and then clutched his aching side, fingers coming away warm and sticky and definitely red.

"Did he get you?" Gretel asked, the worry clear in her tone. He slapped her hands away and she slapped right back and peeled his overcoat to the side to reveal a thin scrape that had cut through leather and cloth but thankfully only a thin layer of skin.

"I'm fine," he insisted, but she wouldn't relent. "Go see to Ben," he tried, but she shook her head.

"You're closer and obviously injured," she reasoned. "Now hold still and don't be a baby." She undid the clasps of his vest and untied his shirt and pushed both to the side. She used the edge of the already stained cloth to wipe at the wound and prove to them both that yes, it was minor and should heal on its own.

She did, however, stare for a little longer than strictly necessary and so he readied himself for the inevitable comments about his slightly greater than usual weight because sisters were nothing if not predictable when it came to finding a possible weakness and exploiting it to its fullest.

Thankfully, she was distracted from making such comments when Ben chose that moment to regain consciousness and groan, the sound pitiful and painful where it carried from the other side of the clearing. She rushed to his side and Hansel followed only slightly more sedately, taking the time to retie his tunic along the way. By the time he got there, Ben was sitting upright, but not really focusing on anything around him. There was a nasty gash across his forehead and another down his arm. His wrist was at a truly unnatural angle as well, which did not bode well for anyone when he snapped out of it and could actually feel the full effects of his injuries for himself.

They bandaged what they could and made a splint for his wrist, but the dazed look on the kid's face didn't fade until well into the next morning. They decided to return him to his home village, which was only about a day's walk away, knowing there were people there who would look out for him. It also had the added benefit that most of the villagers there knew them well already, and barely looked at Edward twice save to ask him if he'd entertain the children.

Gretel was less than subtle about wanting to talk to Hansel alone, but Edward refused to stay away while he deemed his current mistress at risk. Because of this, it was nearly half a day later, when Gretel sent Edward off to see if he could catch some fish for dinner, that she finally whirled on him and demanded, "What is wrong with you?"

Hansel let his hand drift away from the pocket that held the little baked treats Ben's aunt had tucked away on him and stalled with, "Um, what do you mean?" He had known the conversation was coming, knew his performance was as off as his waistline, but still hadn't figured out what was causing it and hadn't wanted to concern his sister when it was either absolutely nothing, or something that could only be solved by discovering there was a witch even more powerful controlling what they thought was the head witch and that's why his current curse hadn't died when she did. She'd be on the rampage, which would be good in one sense but incredibly dangerous in the other. 

Said sister was, of course, as blunt as ever as she ticked off, "You are slower, heavier, and have a focus like the time you accidentally inhaled those little paper rolls the healer from Southfork was burning. When the beast attacked, you glowed, as in actually glowed like a candle." She paused only to pull out the custom pistol he had made for her years ago, and took aim right between his eyes. "If you're not my brother, explain yourself now. If you are, tell me what the hell happened to you and we'll see if we can fix it, or if I need to take you down like a dog."

He put up his hands and made no move towards the gun slung across his back nor the crossbow slung at his side. He had a thousand and one platitudes rehearsed and not a one came to mind. Instead, he sighed heavily and said, "I don't know, Gretel. I honestly don't know!"

He began to pace, hands now dropped to his sides, and was in no way surprised when she followed him with her barrel. The fact she didn't shoot was telling. "I'm hungry and tired and I thought it was the Sugar Sickness getting worse, but forgot to take the injection a few nights back and was fine. Heights and smells are getting to me when they didn't before, and yet I wanted seconds of that mushy cheese from Allenburg," he rattled off. He swiped at the drop of sweat that threatened to drip into his eyes before he continued, "I thought killing the head witch would kill anything her underlings did to me, but it didn't work and I just can't shake the feeling that there is something more at play here."

He knew he hadn't convinced her yet, and was grasping at something else to say, to stall, to prevent her from having to blow her own brother to bits, but was interrupted when his newfound less than perfect balance caused him to trip over an exposed root. Instead of removing his head for the sudden movement, or even letting him fall on his face, he found her hands on him, catching him, guiding him upright again, holding him steady until he could do it on his own. He held on to her because he didn't want to lose her, not over something neither one of them understood just yet if ever, and she whispered promises that they would solve this, that she would find a way to make him better, that she would personally disembowel anyone who had dared tried to harm him.

They went back to the village the next day under the guise of checking on Ben. Hansel gave him the closest thing he could think of to a pep talk, which was an description for a schematic of another multi-firing system he had been thinking about. Ben promised to sketch something out, thankful his good hand was not the one injured, his eyes alight with the possibility of freedom from the boredom that undoubtedly awaited while he healed. Gretel talked to the healer, describing Hansel's symptoms in a roundabout way, naming no names and asking if she had ever heard of such a curse.

"Aye, I have," the healer laughed. She eyed Gretel up and down, noted the tight bodice she still wore, and shook her head. "Many a young lady has come in complaining of such a curse. My advice has always been the same: find a dimwitted lout to marry ye quickly, and hope he's bad at math. If she's lucky, she might even nab whoever she rolled in the hay with unbetrothed. If she's not, she might have to hide for several months and come back with a 'foundling' she just happened across and wanted to save."

Hansel blinked, not quite understanding. Gretel blinked, and then narrowed her eyes at Hansel. She thanked the healer for the information and for looking after Ben, and then dragged Hansel back not to the comfortable room they had waiting for them if needed, but to the campsite where Edward apparently anticipated their arrival. She didn't stop there, but simply gathered their gear and headed out once again.

"Where are we going?" Hansel asked. Ben's aunt had given him treats again, but they had barely lasted past the village gates. He wondered if Edward had saved any of the fish from the night before, but rather doubted it. The big guy needed even more to eat than the rest of them combined, and probably wouldn't let a windfall like that go to waste.

"Home," Gretel replied crisply. He'd say that was the last she spoke for hours, but the silence seemed to be sibling-specific. More than once, he caught her mutter something to Edward. More than once that something sounded like, "Just... watch him, okay."

He didn't know if her words implied concern for him, or from him. She hadn't chopped off his head or ripped out his heart, so hopefully whatever was wrong with him wasn't that serious. He thought about that as he thought about placing one foot in front of the other and trudging on to the place they had started to think of as their base of operations: the homestead of their mother and father, recently repaired to more livable conditions.

Now that they knew where it was, it wasn't hard for them to find by any means. It was off the beaten path a bit, but that also put it out of the way of the casual passerby and usually meant that the few people who found it had business to attend to. Sometimes that business was a request to rid a village of a suspected witch. Sometimes that business was ridding their own homestead of a curious witch. Irregardless, they tended to know who was coming and going, due to one of the very few spells Gretel had tried since finding out about her Grand White Witch heritage, and then only so that the two of them could catch some fucking sleep.

They reached the house by nightfall, and Edward slunk off to the barn which had been converted to a troll-worthy guesthouse. Gretel made a bland but edible dinner and even filled two bowls, furthering his belief that he wasn't to be completely ostracized just yet. 

"You going to tell me what's wrong with me?" Hansel asked when he had scrubbed out the dishes.

The look she gave him was drier than the desert they had traveled through to find the witch from one of Ben's countless books. "Go to sleep, Hansel," she told him instead.

He stripped down and laid down in the tiny bed that had once been his, comfort being a small thing and all that. He traced the patterns of color on the wood with his fingertips but did not fully drift off until he saw Gretel snuff out the candles and bank the fire for the night.

The moon was a tiny sliver of silver through the window when he woke, and he found that Gretel and the longer robe she tended to favor at night was nowhere to be found. Well, not exactly nowhere. There was a flicker of light from the giant gaping hole in the middle of the floor that led to what he had taken to calling his mother's "study" and Gretel still called a witch's lair.

He took his gun because he wasn't that stupid, and didn't bother to bog down his hands with a lantern or candle of his own. Instead, he checked the lock on the door to make sure he hadn't slept through an attack, and peered down the opening to catch a glimpse of his sister chewing on a thumbnail while she twisted back and forth, one of their mother's giant tomes and various bits of parchment laid out before her.

He climbed down the ladder they had added some time back, and found Gretel with a gun of her own in hand by the time he turned around. "Find anything interesting?" he asked, trying his best to look unthreatening with a giant weapon slung over his shoulder.

"Yeah," she snorted and lowered her barrel. "That my brother looks like an idiot wearing only his sleeping tunic and boots."

"And timekeeper," he added with a grin. He held up the leather and metal contraption belted to his wrist. "Can't forget that."

"No, we can't," she agreed with an answering smile. That smile turned frighteningly calculated in a moment though, and she grabbed his wrist to pull towards the light. He had seen that look before, it usually meant she had figured something out. It also usually meant he wasn't going to like that something, so he was in no way surprised when she demanded, "Hansel? When did you add this little bauble to your timekeeper?" 

He looked down to see that mixed in with the usual grommets and straps was a small metal ring inscribed with impossibly tiny runic symbols. "I'm not..." he started, but searched back in his memory and had a vague recollection from months before. "Mina. It was there after the Healing Waters. No, wait, after she healed what Muriel did to me. Did she do this to me? Is she making me sick? Can we get it off, will that make it better?"

He grabbed for the device and tried to yank at the buckles, but found hands stilling his own. "No," Gretel insisted. "You're going to keep that on for now. If it's what I think it is, you're probably going to need it. As for Mina, I do think she did something, but not what you think." She was unnecessarily vague, and it was annoying. The feeling she knew something he didn't was growing, as was the suspicion that whatever was wrong with him was far more serious than he had previously believed.

He started to pace, all pent up anger and energy despite the late hour eventually turning to all out pacing. Of course, pacing in this setting meant avoiding books and herbs and even shiny rocks spread out all over the place, but he did his best. Gretel had gone back to her books, specifically the second largest one that their mother had left behind, paying him very little attention despite the gun that now lay on the table next to her hand. "You've said it before, the only good witch is a dead witch. If she did this to me, but she's already dead, how do we end it? Or does White Witch magic work differently than the rest?" he rambled. He thought of Mina and everything she had done with and for him, and tried to right the image of his memories with the image of a plotting and devious enemy. He wasn't very successful.

Gretel turned to him, a look of less than amusement across her face. "You do know that I'm a witch, right? And that, for all intents and purposes, you may well be a warlock?"

Hansel fumbled for words, surprised she would point out what the usually denied, and eventually settled for, "You're different! You're... Gretel. I know you and know you would never eat children or sacrifice them on the full moon or shit like that." He paused and gave in to the urge to quirk his lips and add, "Though there are times you look almost as ugly as one."

He expected the punch to the arm, but that didn't make it hurt any less. He also expected the, "Fuck you," that followed. What he didn't expect was her to shove one of the shiny rocks in his hands and order, "Hold this."

"Why?" he asked, even though he didn't actually put it down.

She ignored him and said, "Now go light that candle." She pointed to one of the many pillars strewn about the area and did the thing where she pretended she wasn't looking but really was.

There were at least three in the direction she had indicated, and so he gestured with her precious rock and asked, "Did you mean that one, that one, or that one?" What he didn't expect was for each candle to light in turn, flaming bright and filling the area with their warmth.

He had a brief moment to consider how useful such a thing could be on the road before he considered his sister's next words instead: "Yeah, you're fucked."

She sighed and took the rock from his hand and led him over to the book she had been studying. He found it was their mother's grimoire and had a feeling that boded less than well. She flipped to a page with a drawing of a little metal ring with little tiny inscriptions and explained that's what she thought Mina gave him. It was a protection charm, which was actually kind of sweet in a non-evil kind of way. It was feeding off the magic she originally gave it, mixed with his own innate magic left to him by his mother. He was probably not that powerful as the books said warlocks rarely were, and was never going to be able to cast huge massive whatevers, but it should be enough to act as an extra shield against the inevitable damage they faced while hunting. Witches couldn't hurt them, not with their magic at least, but sticks and rocks and all sorts of other things could, and usually did when the witches figured it out.

Gretel wondered if she would be able to make herself such a thing, and Hansel knew he would readily give his over to keep her safe, if she'd actually accept it. But something still didn't make sense to him, so he asked, "What the hell does any of this have to do with me getting sick?"

She pushed him down to the chair she had conveniently placed as if just for that reason. "You said she took you to the Healing Waters, right?" she asked slowly, carefully, as if to a small child.

"Yes..." he replied, drawing the answer out because he knew she already knew this. He also knew it usually annoyed her when he did it, but she was beginning to piss him off with her secrets and suspicions and not getting to the point, so there was that.

Gretel seemed to search for words for a moment, an unusual occurrence in and of itself. Even more unusual was that she had not chosen any profanity when she asked, "Hansel... Did you and Mina grow close in your time together?"

"Yeah, I mean, she was sweet and everything and really nice, but not like close-close - there really wasn't time, you know?" he searched for words while he dug through the memories. He remembered the softness of her smile and the paleness of her skin and the way her hair looked like actual gold when the light hit it just right, but doubted his sister would find any of that useful. He thought of how he had saved her life and how she was actually appreciative and how she had saved his in turn instead, and then realized Gretel was still waiting for a more descriptive answer. "We just bathed, really. I mean, she stripped and tossed me in the Healing Waters and then helped me heal, that's all! And then she helped me again when Muriel took you. So, yeah, but no," he said as decisively as he could. He nodded at the end, fairly certain that was the best description and should be sufficient for his sister's needs.

Gretel closed her eyes for a moment and sighed, so it clearly wasn't what she had been looking for. When she opened them again, he swore he saw the hint of a blush on her features. He was nowhere stupid enough to point that out though. She licked her lips once and finally asked, "Hansel, have you ever been with a woman before?"

He rolled his eyes at her dramatics. "Well, duh, you - damn near every day of my life," he replied with a laugh. Maybe the fumes from the candles were getting to her, or the herbs, or the combination of the two because she really should have known such a thing.

Gretel walked over to one of the rough-hewn walls made of glittering stone and smacked her head against it, twice, a flurry of her previously missing foul language under her breath. She turned back to him, smudge of dirt and what might have been moss across her forehead, with a forced calmness that usually meant someone was going to die and she was really going to enjoy it. "So, no then," was all she said.

"Gretel..." he said warningly, knowing she was keeping something from him, and probably something he really did need to know.

He stood, but found himself shoved right back down again, one hand on his shoulder and the other just barely above where his belt would have been had he been wearing one. She paused as she removed those hands, her right one lingering slightly on the bulge of his stomach before patting it lightly, uneasily. "Just... stay," she ordered.

"Just tell me what the fuck is going on," he countered. He crossed his arms in front of himself and silently dared her to obfuscate yet again.

Of course, she tried anyway. "If what the texts are saying is true, in very rare happenstances under very precise conditions, a White Witch and the child of a White Witch may, perhaps, be able to produce... Of course, under usual means, the witch herself would be the carrier but, given that Mina was dying, or if she happened to be gifted with the Sight and knew in advance the likelihood..."

"Gretel, for fuck's sake, just tell me!" he growled.

"You're with child," she blurted, and then took a step back as if releasing some grand spell of her own, as if saying such ridiculous words made them true.

He shook his head, not certain he had heard her correctly. Nope, the words were still there, like an echo in the little cavern they hid in. He blinked, figuring it was all an extremely weird dream brought on by whatever sickness he had, but the surroundings were still sadly familiar, as was the way his sister now held her hands clenched at her side, eyes wide with the same disbelief he himself felt over the matter, so at least they had that.

"Nature doesn't work that way," he said with a calmness he didn't feel. "Boy horses do not have baby horses. Boy pigs don't give birth to piglets. Boy humans don't give birth to babies!"

"But we're not human," she said quietly. She crouched at his feet and let one hand drift out to where his own was fisted atop his thigh. "We are the children of a witch. I am a witch, at least enough for the Dark Witches to want me dead. Witches bend the rules of nature, change anything and everything to what they need when they need it." She was explaining it to him as though he were one of the ignorant villagers they met near daily, and he couldn't tell if it was supposed to calm him down or aggravate him further.

"Mina wouldn't-" he started, but was cut off.

"Mina wouldn't knowingly harm a human," Gretel agreed. "But you're not human, not entirely, and she wasn't actually harming you as much as saving a life, the life of the child you created together." Her voice was pleading yet calm, willing him to understand, but he really and truly did not want to, not now and not ever.

He threw his hands up in the air, releasing himself from her grasp. "We didn't 'create' anything!" he insisted.

Gretel sighed, again, and this time her voice was far less pleading and far more annoyed. "A warlock and a witch had intercourse in magical waters, what the fuck did you think was going to happen?" she snapped.

Hansel had to admit that, when she put it that way, he had very little argument against it. Also, she sounded far more like herself than the tentative nonsense she had been attempting before. He still couldn't quite wrap his head around the concept, and probably never would without the help of several flagons of ale but considering the smell off the stuff made him queasy at this point - and that should have been a sign in and of itself - that would have to wait, for several months at the very least.

He paused at that. He was still reeling from the hows and whys, but his mind automatically assumed he wold be keeping the thing. The extremely unnatural thing growing in his belly. The extremely unnatural thing that he didn't ask for but was a gift from Mina. An extremely odd gift, but one that was a reminder of an extremely special time together. He didn't know if he'd be able give that up, not if there was a chance the child would be good like her. But, then again, she tricked him in a sense. Or was it really a trick so much as an attempt to save a life like his sister had said? A life that they had created, together?

He looked over the Gretel, who seemed to be waiting for him to sort through his thoughts, and asked, "What do we do?"

"What do you want to do?" she countered. It was less than helpful.

"I- I really don't know," he admitted.

She raised an eyebrow pointedly at the way his hands wrapped protectively around the growing bundle of potential evil, as if he had clearly already made up his mind. "Well, I don't think we can kill it while it's in you with the magic involved. Mina was a White Witch and, due to our mother's heritage, it's a safe bet that you're not going to turn Dark anytime soon. What do you want to do? Try to expel it now, or wait until you give birth to see how it turns out?"

Hansel thought about that for a moment. Gretel really wasn't that good at the healing magics yet, and a simple tea to aid with sleep left him up vomiting for days. He rather would like her trials to be on someone decidedly not him and removing a growing child seemed like it would be a pretty big deal. Even if she went the brute force route and cut it out, he doubted he would be mobile and ready for witch-fighting action for months, which would leave him a sitting target and Gretel without reliable backup, though the same thing was true if he kept it and had to protect it during those important first months or years.

That, of course, led to another thought. She seemed to reach the same conclusion the same time he did if her raised eyebrows and widened eyes were any indication. "Um, Gretel, how do we get this thing out of me? I mean, not even right now, but if I keep it? Seriously, this thing has to come out, right? I don't have the parts. Hell, I don't want the parts. But I also don't want it to come out the parts I have because there are so many things wrong with that, with this whole thing, really." He was babbling, but really didn't care. There were the fears for the child, but there were also fears for himself. He'd seen the size of newborns, and there was no part of his body that could provide a passageway for that.

She stood then, and wrapped her arms around him. "We'll figure it out, Hansel," she promised. "I'm sure Mina knew of a way, or she never would have done this. She's not nearly enough of a bitch for that. Apparently less than self-sacrificing, and made sure her own bloodline would live on, but I don't think she intended you any actual harm."

"She said she liked me," he mumbled into his sister's shoulder, trying to ignore the added commentary. "She said I was the first man to see her as her, and not as potentially evil."

"Not evil," Gretel agreed, albeit reluctantly. "Probably desperate, but not evil." 

He wanted to ask just what she was desperate for, but feared he wouldn't like the answer. It was possible he had fallen into a witch's trap, just as it was possible she made the most out of happenstance and he just happened to get caught in the middle. So many thoughts floated through his mind, and he couldn't make sense out of a single one of them. He was tired and confused and would rather like to shoot something just to make himself feel better, but doubted Gretel would be up for a night hunt, especially one with no actual leads and two exhausted hunters.

She pushed herself away after a while, and pushed him towards the ladder that led to the main level. "Go to bed, Hansel. We're not going to figure this out tonight," she told him.

He agreed and shuffled off to his old bunk, pausing only once to make certain she was following. She did, and he eventually drifted off to dream of carts and toys and little blonde haired babies with giant targets on their backs and mothers that were alive and well and not leaving their children behind to potentially face the world alone or at least with more than father that was equally a target for protection.

The next few weeks were odd, to say the least. Gretel actually studied the various texts and manuscripts left behind by their mother for the first time since they had learned of their existence. Previously, she had flipped through to look for a single specific item that may or may not aid them with whatever quest they currently found themselves on, but now she was actively studying, actively learning, actively making the small house smell like all sorts of burnt leaves and other dead things.

Edward proved to be quite helpful in the finding and gathering of all kinds of roots and herbs. He patiently dug and sorted them all, and even corrected Gretel more than once when she reached for the hawthorn but needed the nettle instead. It was weird, and Hansel couldn't claim to be completely comfortable with it all, so he would sneak off on hunts of either the food-gathering or evil-witch-killing type, usually returning to find an exasperated sister waiting on him and demanding to know where he had been.

He took to finding dinner along the way both to ease her fears and fill his belly. He happened across a wild boar once and could not believe his luck. He then further could not believe it when Edward stopped his shot, gathered the thing in hand, and hauled it back to a pit he had dug for just that purpose.

"What the hell?" he demanded. They did not keep pets. Well, they did not keep pets aside from Ben and Edward, but both had proved more of "helpful companion" than "tagalong" as of recently, even if he still felt the need to make sure they were fed and watered on occasion.

"Gretel need," Edward replied, as if that explained everything.

Maybe it did, because his sister appeared streaked with ash and smelling of something decidedly not food. She peered into the pit and verified, "You found one? Good job!"

"That was our dinner!" Hansel protested.

"That's our test subject," she countered. She looked down at the thing and shrugged, "It can be dinner if this doesn't work."

He wasn't sure he wanted to know what she meant. He was even less certain after he saw the results of her "test." Hell, he wasn't sure he would ever be able to eat boar again after seeing what happened to the mother and four of the five little piglets. On the one hand, one of the babies survived. On the other, the squeals of the less fortunate were going to echo in his dreams for ages. 

He returned from rinsing his mouth after he vomited profusely to find a stew in progress and Edward nonchalantly sweeping away some bones. He tried to make Gretel promise to never do that again, and settled for the compromise that she would not do so in his presence. The promise apparently came easier after she had to deal with his nightmares that night. He'd say she was feeling guilty, and he'd say he abused that guilt a little, but it earned him a full-sized bed to stretch out in and he rather liked that result, if not the precursor to it.

The next time he walked in on her trying to repeat her experiment, he very quickly walked away. It was not because of whatever was squirming in the pen at here side, but because of Gretel's expression when Edward near forcibly removed the scroll and what looked to be a bowl full of ash from her hands. The troll very pointedly placed a different book in front of her, as well as a bag full of some kind of berries and sighed dramatically as he took the others away. He never did find out exactly what she had been doing, and he liked that just fine.

One thing that he did not like was the return of the dragon-like thing. It found them. As in, the damn thing flew past their house several times before circling and settling in like it owned the place. Edward tried to rip it to shreds and it threw him back against one of surrounding trees, slinking forward, ready for the kill. Gretel appeared and shot it, but the bullet had the same impact as before, which was to say none at all. It rambled over to her, all stained teeth and scaled death, and then it stopped.

This time, Hansel had a good view of the entire event. Gretel had shackled him to a post and left the key a decent stretch away, enough so that he'd have to work for it but would eventually be able to free himself. He was trapped within the protective wards of the house though, unable to reach the danger as much as the danger would be unable to reach him.

He watched the shot and the lack of response. He watched the prowl and the inherent sniffing that apparently was a thing with the beast. He watched as his sister simply stood there and the thing lowered its head and took several steps backward and away before it flew off again to parts unknown, only to repeat the process the next day and the day after that.

It was then that Gretel took a break from the warlockian pregnancy research and started to read up on dragons.

Hansel let her be because, really, the trying to birth things without giving birth thing was not going well. Even Edward had been reluctant to turn over the last mother-to-be, and it had been a rabid squirrel so they actually would have been helping in the long run. The good news was that six of the seven babies survived and it looked like the seventh wasn't actually Gretel's fault. Of course, that meant that they now had six possibly rabid tiny furballs to take care of but, surprisingly enough, Edward was really good at that and had made a special pouch to carry the things around in and everything.

His own baby seemed relatively normal, all things considered. Now that he knew the suspected conception date, he could figure out where in the process he was based on some scrolls he found in the study. He was actually about the right size and having the right symptoms and everything, which eased the nightmares about giving birth to a demon child quite a bit. That of course changed the first time the baby kicked him hard enough to wake him from a dead sleep and he feared a transformation had begun, or at the very least Mina's little gift was breaking free.

It was then that Gretel took a break from the dragon research and returned to reading up on magical babies.

Amongst other things, they learned that even magical babies would need food, or at least a milk source. Since Hansel wasn't going to be able to provide it, they needed an alternative. Cows were bulky, expensive, and tempting for both Edward and the possibly returning dragon. Goats were smaller, more portable, and could be housed in a smaller area much easier to protect. Plus, Edward promised to leave it alone when told both what it was for and that Gretel requested it.

Gretel left for the village after a long debate that included pointing out that the majority of the villagers were incredibly stupid and would think him bewitched and try to kill him and likely her as obviously she had been tricked into protecting him and the bloodshed would be quite notable and the stress bad for the baby. He made her take Edward for protection even though it meant promising to stay within the wards of the homestead while she was gone.

Of course, as soon as she left, he stumbled down to the study and read more of the damned books and scrolls for himself. It wasn't that he didn't trust Gretel to do what was best for him, it was more like he didn't trust Gretel not to hide things from him in the name of protection. And so he read and he studied and he did far more than lighting a random candle in between rubbing his now quite rounded belly and scratching at the slightly itchy wool of the loose trousers he currently favored ever since his leather ones had refused to buckle.

He was in no way powerful and the bits and pieces he attempted tired him far more than he was willing to admit. Considering daily tasks were tiring him more than he wanted to admit in the first place, he found himself quite exhausted by the end of the day. He made himself a quick meal out of the dried meats and fruit left behind, snuffed out the candles and lanterns, and passed out for the night, a couple of those sparkly stones placed in strategic places about the room and his person.

Gretel returned with the goat as promised, and with Ben as suspected. This meant precisely three things. The first was that they now had a fresh source of milk. The second was that the quality of their daily meals was about to significantly improve. The final was that there were going to be quite a few uncomfortable conversations in the future. They jumped right to the start with the last one, Ben pulling a knife and demanding to know who bewitched Hansel and where the real Hansel was and really just a bunch of jumbled questions and threats that distracted him enough for Gretel to kick the knife away without a fight and demand that he sit down and listen.

His sister was in protective mode, which was nice, even though they both knew Ben was not actually a threat and actually had some decent intentions at heart. Edward showed his allegiance as well, the small blade he picked up near disappearing completely in his massive hand while he crossed his arms over his chest and stood by all nice and menacing. Hansel tried not to smirk and tried not to abuse said protectiveness, something that grew infinitely easier to accomplish when he realized they meant to protect him from himself as well and Gretel flat out announced he was off witch hunting for the foreseeable future and that she had ordered Edward to make sure Hansel followed that order.

Hansel protested and got about as far as expected, which was to say not very fucking far. Gretel knew his weaknesses far too well, as well as his current limitations. The fact that levering himself up from a chair was a chore in and of itself didn't help matters, but he was determined and all nice and pissed off, and so he managed it anyway. He huffed out an excuse about checking the snares while he stormed off, grateful that he had at least managed to put his boots on before she returned so he didn't have the indignity of her watching him attempt that.

Edward started to follow, but was stopped by Hansel's, "If you want any actual meat for dinner, keep your pet back." It was low and it was mean and Hansel would probably nab an extra partridge for the guy later in apology, but he didn't need a fucking bodyguard just to grab dinner.

Ben came with instead and Hansel sighed because that was probably actually worse. The kid had questions and he didn't really have that many answers and the few he did he rather wanted to keep to himself. He may have, possibly, abused the kid's crush on his sister and maybe even found a way to keep the advances down a notch when he snapped, "This is why you don't fuck with witches, even the good ones."

Ben was oddly quiet after that. Hansel had a brief moment of regret followed by a brief moment of realizing a partridge probably wouldn't resolve things with him, followed by remembering he was still pissed off at the world in general anyway and the kid could deal with it for a while and maybe learn that not everything was bright and shiny and good even when the forces of evil were kept at bay.

The ensuing silence was exactly what he was looking for and probably exactly what he didn't need. Ben wasn't bad, just curious, and his incessant studying had helped them more times than not and his meals far surpassed anything the siblings themselves could come up with and he had just come back from several months' confinement in a backwards village while he healed from an injury he had received because he had been determined to follow everyone else into danger. Plus he had a little pouch at his side that looked just like the ones from his aunt that held the tiny little breads she made.

Hansel wasn't going to think about that last part. Even though Ben reached in and offered him one. Even though his stomach growled, possibly audibly. He was self-sufficient and a grown man and didn't need to be coddled just because he was carrying a possibly cursed child within him. A child that kicked him painfully enough that he nearly stumbled. A child that Ben knew practically nothing about and just took their word that it wasn't going to kill them all in their sleep. A child that Hansel found himself dreaming about pretty much every day and every night, only he knew they were only dreams because Mina wasn't there at his side when he awoke.

He blinked himself back to the present and found that his mind had wandered yet again. It was doing that more and more lately and he knew it was a dangerous pastime. You didn't pay attention to your surroundings, you didn't pay attention to the hundreds of threats that were out there waiting for you to drop your guard, and you were dead or as good as. And you deserved it too, for being dumb enough to give evil such an obvious opening.

He reached the snares he had set a few days prior and was pleased to see that many actually held a potential meal. He reached for one and lost his footing, boots sliding along the moss and stones. He grabbed for the snare itself, but it slipped through his fingers and he found himself flailing backwards until he landed soundly on his ass. An attempt to push himself upwards failed and left him sliding further down the slight incline until he could dig his heels into the loamy soil and finally come to a complete stop.

He laid there for a moment, stunned, knowing his balance was far better than that and that there was absolutely no reason for him to be even slightly out of breath let alone panting from his little adventure. He looked up to find Ben staring down at him with wide, wide eyes and he cursed silently that not only had he embarrassed himself, he had done so in front of another person and would be in no way able to make up a story for the streaks of dirt and grass that stained his clothing and exposed skin. "Well, fuck," he finally said when he found his words again.

"That does seem to be a problem, yes," Ben agreed.

That, of all things, set him off. He didn't know if the kid meant the fall was the problem or the fucking that got him into trouble in the first place, but the whole thing was just so ridiculous, he just started to laugh. He lay there, splayed out on his back, moss and mud and everything else around him, both hands on his shaking belly, and just laughed.

Ben joined in after a stunned pause, and eventually caught his breath enough to ask, "Would you like some help?"

"Help?" Hansel asked, not sure if he should be offended or still amused. His hands slid on the moss when he tried to right himself though, and so he went with amused when he admitted, "Yeah, that'd be appreciated."

Ben carefully made his way down the incline, hands outstretched for balance until he crouched at Hansel's side. "I won't ask how you are because that's obvious and you'd lie anyway," he began. "Instead, I'll ask how Mina Two is because I'm guessing you'll be more protective of him or her than you are of yourself."

Hansel inwardly frowned at the kid's intelligence, and then did a quick review of both him and the life he was carrying. "I think everything's fine," he admitted. "As Gretel is so fond of saying lately, I've got the padding for it. Baby's still kicking and my ass is as bruised as my ego but, other than that, everything's good."

Of course he spoke too soon because, really, when had anything ever worked out as planned, especially when they were already down? There was a rush of wind and a cackling and then a hell of a lot of profanity as Ben helped him scramble to his feet to meet the threat head on. It was a witch because what the fuck else would it be? And the fall had set him outside the secondary wards because why the fuck should he within their protection at a time like this? He took comfort in the fact he still had his gun, even if he had only brought with three knives. A quick glance showed Ben still had his rifle, so there was that as well. All in all, they weren't nearly as screwed as they could have been.

That's when the second witch appeared.

So, two on two; they'd had worse in the past. Usually it was Gretel and him against two incarnations of evil, but the kid was better than nothing and actually a decent shot. Then again, the kid had just recovered from a broken wrist and there was no telling how that'd change his aim, but still, it could be worse. He took his shot and smiled grimly as it tore through an outstretched arm, knocking a wand out of play at the same time.

That's when the second one managed to get his gun from him.

He could not figure out how it happened. He had been focused on the one, but kept the other in his sights at the same time, yet his primary weapon now hung from a branch across the clearing. It took him a stupidly long time to realize that the voice currently mocking him wasn't actually coming from either of the women he could see, but from a third now approaching from his left.

"Hansel?" Ben asked, rifle at the ready.

"Shoot what you can, kid," he ordered. "Or, better yet, take about six steps back and then shoot what you can." The actual distance to the edge of the wards was less than that, but it should be sufficient to keep his current ally relatively safe.

Ben took the hint because, again, he wasn't actually that dumb despite the lack of common sense at times. One of the bitches tried to fire off a spell at him around step five, but it ricocheted harmlessly into the ether. Ben smirked and blew off her head because he had spent either too long or just enough time with Gretel in the past.

One of the witches shrieked, but the other silenced her with, "We avenge her by completing our task. The abomination cannot be allowed to survive!"

Both women turned on him then, wands at the ready, and Hansel spared a second to think about what they had called his child-to-be and then a second to think about how they had just guaranteed he was going to do everything in his power to protect his kid. He threw one of his knives and managed to slice up the oddly blue-tinged arm, but not enough to make her release her hold. Ben took the shot when she faltered, and then another when she flailed on the ground.

Hansel turned to the remaining witch to find he didn't need to do a damn thing as Gretel had heard the shots and finished the job for him. She kicked the now headless wonder as she approached, and offered Hansel a hand to get up the last of the incline. He offered her thanks, but she simply shrugged and said, "Nobody gets through this auntie." She patted him on the belly like that was something she did, and the traitorous child within rewarded her with a kick.

She pulled out a knife of her own to go double-check the state of the attackers, and Ben sidled up next to him and verified that yes, the pouch he carried was filled with those tiny breads. He offered one to Hansel now, voice barely above a whisper as he said, "I'd say you earned one."

Hansel took it and had it halfway to his mouth when Gretel whipped around and asked, "You making my brother fatter than he already is?" She was smiling, and hadn't actually tried to take the treat away, so Hansel shoved it in his mouth and stuck his tongue out at her, crumbs and all.

"The baby's hungry," he said, swallowing the last of it. He palmed the second one Ben gave him, but wasn't stupid enough to think either one of them had fooled Gretel.

"And your pants already don't fit," she countered. She let him be for now though, turning her attentions to Ben who was doing a shit job of hiding his amusement. "Burn the bodies but save the wands; there's something I want to try."

"Gretel..." Hansel sighed. He remembered her most recent experiments and really didn't need any new fodder for nightmares nor indigestion.

She unhooked his gun from the branch where it hung and handed it back to him. "They waited for you just past the wards and targeted that little parasite of yours, which means they know something we don't. Dark Witches going after the unborn child of a White Witch and possible warlock? We need every advantage we can get."

He couldn't really argue with that, and wasn't dumb enough to try. Ben grabbed the wands and Gretel grabbed the bodies and Hansel went about gathering the food from the snares. He still had another three to go when he heard the now familiar flap of dragon wings and wondered what other fresh hell the day had to bring them.

The dragon left both Gretel and himself alone, but seemed as confused as a stupid beast could be by the fact Ben was both there and holding several wands. It kept approaching and retreating, head cocked to the side as if trying to figure out a particularly difficult puzzle. Eventually, it swept its tail behind Ben, catching him at he ankles and would have made him fall had Edward not appeared to keep him upright. One of the wands dropped though, and it sniffed at that, still clearly confused as to why a non-witch would have such a thing.

Edward had tugged Ben behind the ward again, even though the spell seemed to make no actual difference on the beast. Gretel looked ready to do the same for Hansel, but the dragon was closer to her and already acting strange - well, stranger than normal - so Hansel went for a distraction and tossed one of his rabbits in the thing's direction.

It caught it, and looked pretty pleased with itself for doing so, and then waited expectantly for another. Hansel obliged and tossed it a second one, only this one ended up near where they had been gathering the witches bodies to burn. It paused at that, so Hansel said, "Go on, they're all yours."

The beast ate the rabbit, and the started in on the witches as well, munching happily away while the four of them inched backwards until they could make a run for the house again.

"Well, that happened," Hansel commented once behind the safety of the closed door. His breath was ragged and he didn't like it, and he readily took the chair slid his way, hands once again cradling his over-large stomach.

"It doesn't make sense," Gretel protested. "I thought it was leaving us alone because of our witch heritage, but it ate those three just fine."

"But they were dead," Ben pointed out. At the matching looks he received for his proclamation, he explained, "So far, from what you've told me, the dragon worked for a witch, right?"

They both nodded and Hansel added, "It went off on its own after the witch it worked for and the witch she served died, and has been following us around ever since."

Now Ben nodded as if that made perfect sense. "You showed you were more powerful than its master, and its master's master," he reasoned. "Dragons are magical creatures, right? Maybe they can sense magic. It would explain why it's left you alone, and why it was confused when I had the wands. When the Dark Witches died, they didn't have their magic any more. They were just bodies, a food source, really. A food source that a magical being told it was okay to eat."

Gretel's eyes lit up in a way Hansel knew to fear. "We can use this," she declared, just like he knew she would.

Which is how what was once a witch hunting team of two becursed/bespelled siblings became a team of two becursed/bespelled siblings, a scholar, a troll, and occasionally a dragon.

More than a single Dark Witch lurked around their wards, trying to find a weakness and a way in. More than a single Dark Witch spoke of the "abomination" as well. More than a single Dark Witch didn't speak of it for long though, as Gretel or Ben or Edward or even Hansel on increasingly rare occasions took them down and fed them to the scaled menace Hansel had taken to calling Frosch because it was less scary to think it looked and acted like and over-large frog, but with wings and fangs and bits of decay stuck in its teeth as it devoured rotting flesh.

Of course, Frosch wasn't always around because it both liked to hunt out more than the random prize and liked to curl up to sleep after a particularly decent meal. It brought Hansel back to the pet analogy again, and he wondered if he should have called it Hund instead. 

He was actually thinking about just that while he walked back from the little hutch they had built off the side of their home, a bucket of fresh goat's milk in hand. His stomach seized suddenly, and the milk sloshed over the sides of the bucket while he tried to find his footing again. He managed to make it all the way to the table they used to sort herbs and strip game set just outside the door, hand on the flat surface, when the sensation hit once more. It was like when the baby kicked, only not limited to a tiny foot-sized area and seemed to encompass his entire stomach, which lurched under his fingertips when he removed his hand from the wood to clutch it protectively.

He called for his sister, but didn't know if she had heard him over the cackling and shrieking that seemed to be coming from all directions. It was nearing sundown, but there was still enough light that no Dark Witch should dare venture forth. That said, the homestead was surrounded, at least a dozen witches lurked in the shadows and trees, their shrill protests sounding when the sun would find the smallest bit of exposed skin and sent it sizzling and burning.

Gretel heard him though, or at least heard the overall commotion, as she came running, Ben at her heels and Edward bursting forth from the barn. "What the hell is this?" she demanded.

Hansel tried to find the words, but really and truly could not, almost pleased when one of the witches announced, "It is beginning!"

"Shit," Gretel swore, and Hansel echoed the sentiment, especially since the sun disappeared behind some clouds, painting the area more in gray than purple and pink and the occasional orange.

Ben brought them their armament, and not a moment too soon as five of the Dark Witches focused their wands on a single point of the wards, the surface shimmering and glittering beneath their attack. Hansel spared a thought that they must have already done the same for the secondary wards further out, and then he just started firing.

He got one and Gretel got another, but two more stepped up to take their place sooner rather than later. Hansel's stomach seized again and his next shot went wide, but Ben provided backup and took down the one he had missed. There was a weak spot now though, and one of the witches pushed through, skin blistering and burning from the effort. She dodged Gretel's shot and darted towards Hansel, who wasn't sure he could aim that well with his stomach in the state it was in and the child inside kicking for all it was worth.

It didn't matter anyway as the witch was now close enough to wrestle the gun away and Hansel did the only thing he could think of, which was to kick her back, crash the nearby lantern over her head, and use one of the sparkly stones he had taken to carrying with him to set her ass on fire. Gretel grinned as she picked up Hansel's far larger gun and shot the bitch backwards into the gathered crowd of the others, through the wards and into their outstretched and soon to be enflamed arms.

Through their howls, Gretel ordered, "Get him inside!"

Edward hauled Hansel up and tossed him towards Ben, who manhandled him inside the house with its freshly reinforced protections, ironically the gift of the wands Gretel had stolen from the Dark Witches weeks before. Before he passed through the door however, Hansel heard the beat of leathery wings and felt the thud as the ground shook beneath his feet. He whipped around, fearing the loyalties of an animal tied to magic and its choice of the will of one versus the will of many, but it turned out not to matter.

"Hey, Frosch, remember who feeds you," Gretel called. The beast seemed to smile as it flipped around to face the already dwindling horde. "We cooked you up a nice full meal - have at it!"

The dragon roared through the gathered witches like a puppy after a bone, scattering them from their careful formation and knocking several over to get to its prize. Gretel used the distraction to shoot as many as possible, weakening their defenses and further filling their new pet's belly.

"That is really gross," Ben hiccuped, looking more than slightly green around the gills.

"Yeah, well wait 'til Gretel tries to get this thing out of me," Hansel retorted. He caught sight of Gretel repeating his lantern trick only this time using the vat of fat Ben liked to use to cook with, and then he was shoved unceremoniously inside and the door slammed shut behind him.

His next memories were a jumbled mess of pain mixed with the shriek of dying witches and roaring beasts and the smell of something fetid and disgusting that could have been the dragon enjoying its feast and could have been Ben losing his lunch. Gretel arrived, scroll and berries and many other things he feared in hand, and sent Ben to the door to pick off any stragglers with the help of Edward, who was also assigned to the task.

Hansel panted and swore resisted the urge to push as there was no place for the child to actually be pushed to, and then there was a blinding light and a wail far too high pitched and frantic to be that of their enemies. He clutched the squirming mass to him while Gretel continued to chant and, in the fading glow of gold, he swore he saw Mina's face smile down at him, a pale hand reach out to pet the top of the gooey small head, and them pass right through as she faded away.

Gretel finally stopped her chanting, and the worse of the pain lessened at least slightly. Hansel looked from the slimy bundle he held to his exhausted sister, and breathed a sigh of relief. "It's a girl," Gretel announced. She pushed her hair back from her face and smeared ash and what he hoped was only smashed berries across her cheek with the action.

The room had heated up with the encroaching flames and his own exertions, but the little bauble on his wrist chose that moment to glow all golden again. Through the window, he saw the sky break open with rain, successfully snuffing out any and every fire that might threaten the place. In his arms, his child raised one tiny fist and her skin seemed to radiate with the same light as the spell itself, before she lowered it and snuggled close and cooed.

He named his daughter Magisch, or Magie for short, and kissed the top of her head before he scrubbed his lips with his sleeve and wondered if he dared move to try to wash her up into something resembling more of an infant and less of a massacre. Ben resolved that by wetting a cloth in the still falling rain, and bringing it in for him to use to do just that.

In the years that followed he may have, possibly, embellished the tales of her birth more than a little. Ben joined in to speak of how the sky itself struck down any surviving witches from the attack with lightning, offering them up to Frosch in repayment for his loyalty. He would always say such things with a seriousness and far off look to his eyes that even Hansel himself wanted to believe him, but knew such things were foolish at best.

Magie was fascinated by the sparkly rocks, and they quickly learned to keep such things far, far away from her. Hansel did make her a bracelet very similar to his own, and transferred a certain inscribed bauble to it, adding leather to it as needed as she grew healthy and whole. It proved prudent more than once as Dark Witches were still idiotic enough to attempt random attacks, often resulting in Magie's favorite plaything having another snack while she tried to tie ribbons around its scaled tail.

The first time that Hansel heard the words, "Father, duck!" and turned to see his little girl with her pretty dress and golden-red hair blowing in the breeze, miniature crossbow in hand, he didn't think he had ever been so proud. When she nailed the witch that had been lurking in the bushes right between the eyes, he corrected that assessment.

He didn't know if it was the life Mina had intended for their child, but he knew it was the best life he could offer. A protective aunt, a private tutor, her own personal bodyguard of a troll, and a pet dragon were more than most could ask for, and he knew he would give her even more if he could. For now though, he let her paint little pictures and stain her pretty dresses and improve her aim with every passing day. And the day she walked up, self-made wand in one hand and pistol in the other, he knew he had done his best to raise her right.

 

End.


End file.
